Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A poem I read at last week's poetry night

To a Lady on the Death of three Relations.

WE trace the pow'r of Death from tomb to tomb, And his are all the ages yet to come. 'Tis his to call the planets from on high, To blacken Phoebus, and dissolve the sky; His too, when all in his dark realms are hurl'd, From its firm base to shake the solid world; His fatal sceptre rules the spacious whole, And trembling nature rocks from pole to pole. Awful he moves, and wide his wings are spread: Behold thy brother number'd with the dead! From bondage freed, the exulting spirit flies Beyond Olympus, and these starry skies. Lost in our woe for thee, blest shade, we mourn In vain; to earth thou never must return. Thy sisters too, fair mourner, feel the dart Of Death, and with fresh torture rend thine heart. Weep not for them, and leave the world behind. As a young plant by hurricanes up torn, So near its parent lies the newly born-- But 'midst the bright ehtereal train behold It shines superior on a throne of gold: Then, mourner, cease; let hope thy tears restrain, Smile on the tomb, and sooth the raging pain. On yon blest regions fix thy longing view, Mindless of sublunary scenes below; Ascend the sacred mount, in thought arise, And seek substantial and immortal joys; Where hope receives, where faith to vision springs, And raptur'd seraphs tune th' immortal strings To strains extatic. Thou the chorus join, And to thy father tune the praise divine.